Dead Dogs In Freezer, Roaches Crawling On Little Girl: The Disgusting Case Of Child Neglect Florida Cops Found

A Daytona Beach-area woman is in jail after police allegedly found unimaginable filth — including three dead dogs in a freezer — at a home where two children had been living, WKMG (Orlando) is reporting.

Victoria Kanger, 35, faces child neglect charges, and her two children have been removed from her home, following an investigation into living conditions in the home that began in October. Police received an anonymous 911 call reporting on unlivable conditions in the home, where a 5-year-old girl and 14-year-old were living with Kanger.

“It is disgusting, non-livable for a 5-year-old (girl). I mean, there’s poop all over the floor, there’s piles of clothes, there’s roaches. She’s had lice for the past eight months.”

According to a police report, so bad was the smell emanating from the home that when an officer showed up to investigate, he was overwhelmed by the smell of urine, feces, and rotting food — and that was just at the doorway. Once inside, the smell was exponentially worse. What’s more, fleas covered the officer’s pants leg once he took a few steps inside the house.

Fleas would turn out to be the least of the officer’s concerns. Authorities say that multiple cats and dogs roamed around the house, their feces covering the floor. During the investigation, the 5-year-old girl allegedly stepped in it, barefoot, and didn’t even react.

Roaches swarmed the place — on the walls, the floors, on the couch where a 5-year-old girl was allegedly sitting. The officer said that whenever a roach crawled on the girl, she nonchalantly flicked it off, perhaps suggesting that this was perfectly normal to her.

As in all cases of suspected child neglect, the officer went to check for food. In the family’s refrigerator, what food there was had either rotted or was covered in cockroaches, or both. In the freezer, instead of food, were three dead dogs covered in cardboard. Kanger allegedly told officers that she stored the animals in the freezer because she didn’t have a shovel with which to bury them, and she thought it was OK anyway since there wasn’t any food in the freezer, according to The Miami Herald.

Since the initial investigation, Kanger made something of an effort to clean up — and indeed, when a child welfare worker showed up to investigate, he or she found that Kanger had done some cleaning of the home, but there was still a long way to go.

Now, two months later, authorities have removed the two children from the home and have taken Kanger downtown.

A family friend said that the house got that way because Kanger had the flu.

“Anybody’s who has been sick, knows you can’t get up.”

The friend also doesn’t believe that Kanger needed to go to jail and have her kids taken from her over a messy house.

“It’s very tragic, it’s unnecessary and it’s uncalled for. She needs help.”

Kanger has been charged with one count of child neglect. Her bond has been placed at $2,500, and she is not allowed to have unsupervised contact with her children.